


Till the Stars Run Away

by Mareel



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Aging, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mareel/pseuds/Mareel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love remains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till the Stars Run Away

**Author's Note:**

> This is a moment from a future approximately 50 years after the launch of _Enterprise_. Jonathan and Malcolm have been together for many years and it is Jonathan's voice. The title refers to the Yeats quote. Written for the prompt 'love in old age'.

 

  
_For he would be thinking of love_   
_till the stars had run away_   
_and the shadows eaten the moon._   
W. B. Yeats   


 

It’s the touch of his fingertips. It’s always been that way. A simple touch to my hand could calm me, reassure me, and tell me he was there for me, no matter what. When his fingertips brushed my cheek, it was often a prelude to so much more… the quiet start of bliss. 

I always loved to watch his hands as his fingers played across his tactical console, precise, graceful, purposeful, as much in tune with his instrument as any pianist with a Steinway. Those hands are older now, thinner, the veins and tendons more defined, but still as graceful, as deliberate in their touch. 

And they still hold the power to touch me deeply – the calm, the reassurance unchanged with the years. He traces a fingertip across my lips and I’m almost loath to interrupt the sensation with a kiss… almost, but not quite. After I kiss his fingers, he cups my face in his hands and returns the kiss a hundredfold. It still sets off a wellspring of emotion – my body can’t be as responsive as it once was, but my heart recreates the bliss. 

He knows that, and when I touch him in turn I see the effect of it in his eyes and in his smile. His face is more lined, but that smile is unchanging. There’s little need for words… we’ve said it all again and again… but nonetheless I whisper it to him as I draw him into my arms. 

“I love you, Malcolm.”

 


End file.
